Quantcast
  • Register
PhysicsOverflow is a next-generation academic platform for physicists and astronomers, including a community peer review system and a postgraduate-level discussion forum analogous to MathOverflow.

Welcome to PhysicsOverflow! PhysicsOverflow is an open platform for community peer review and graduate-level Physics discussion.

Please help promote PhysicsOverflow ads elsewhere if you like it.

News

PO is now at the Physics Department of Bielefeld University!

New printer friendly PO pages!

Migration to Bielefeld University was successful!

Please vote for this year's PhysicsOverflow ads!

Please do help out in categorising submissions. Submit a paper to PhysicsOverflow!

... see more

Tools for paper authors

Submit paper
Claim Paper Authorship

Tools for SE users

Search User
Reclaim SE Account
Request Account Merger
Nativise imported posts
Claim post (deleted users)
Import SE post

Users whose questions have been imported from Physics Stack Exchange, Theoretical Physics Stack Exchange, or any other Stack Exchange site are kindly requested to reclaim their account and not to register as a new user.

Public \(\beta\) tools

Report a bug with a feature
Request a new functionality
404 page design
Send feedback

Attributions

(propose a free ad)

Site Statistics

205 submissions , 163 unreviewed
5,082 questions , 2,232 unanswered
5,355 answers , 22,793 comments
1,470 users with positive rep
820 active unimported users
More ...

  Use cartan algebra in spinor representation to find weights of vector representation

+ 4 like - 0 dislike
1249 views

For SO(2n) we can construct the lie algebra elements by using antisymmetric combinations of $\gamma_\mu$ which obey the clifford algebra.

Up to some prefactor the elements $ S_{\mu \nu} = \alpha [\gamma_\mu , \gamma_\nu] $ can be used as generators. Then we can identify the cartan subalgebra with the elements $ H_i = S_{(2i-1)(2i)} $.

Now i would like to use this to find the weights for an element ($A_\mu)$ in the vector representation of SO(2n). For this purpose I used the $\gamma_\mu$ basis and tried to find the weights for $A_\mu \gamma^\mu$.

The problem is that certain elements of the cartan algebra just commute with parts of the $A_\mu \gamma^\mu$ sum. For example:

$H_2 (A_1 \gamma^1) = (2 \alpha \gamma_3 \gamma_4) \cdot (A_1 \gamma^1)  = (2 \alpha ) \cdot (A_1 \gamma^1) \gamma_3 \gamma_4 $

since the commutation of the 2 $\gamma$ gives a factor of $(-1)^2$. Raising and lowering indices is without consequence since the metric for the clifford algebra is euclidean ( $\delta ^{\mu \nu}$ ).

But this parts should rather go to zero to get a linear action from $H$ on the vector represention. 

What is wrong with the approach above? or should it work? Is there a way to justify that the commutation corresponds to a zero element ( or zero weight if it commutes with the wohle $A_\mu \gamma^\mu$)?

asked Feb 5, 2016 in Theoretical Physics by LQD (35 points) [ no revision ]

Your answer

Please use answers only to (at least partly) answer questions. To comment, discuss, or ask for clarification, leave a comment instead.
To mask links under text, please type your text, highlight it, and click the "link" button. You can then enter your link URL.
Please consult the FAQ for as to how to format your post.
This is the answer box; if you want to write a comment instead, please use the 'add comment' button.
Live preview (may slow down editor)   Preview
Your name to display (optional):
Privacy: Your email address will only be used for sending these notifications.
Anti-spam verification:
If you are a human please identify the position of the character covered by the symbol $\varnothing$ in the following word:
p$\hbar$ysicsOver$\varnothing$low
Then drag the red bullet below over the corresponding character of our banner. When you drop it there, the bullet changes to green (on slow internet connections after a few seconds).
Please complete the anti-spam verification




user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required

Your rights
...